


forgive us our debts

by poalimal



Series: WIP Amnesty [12]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dubious Consent, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 07:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17741633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: Chris's father died quietly, painlessly; and the funeral had barely ended before the demon came to collect.





	forgive us our debts

_'The doctors said your mother couldn't get pregnant,' said his father, 'but you have always lived to defy expectation.'_

 

* * *

 

 

Chris's father died quietly, painlessly; and the funeral had barely ended before the demon came to collect.

Chris did not know him at first. He had been carefully closing the passenger door of a carful of aunts when a shiver had broken out all over his body. The car pulled away, the rain poured down, and Chris, for one perfect moment, was all alone.

Then he raised his umbrella - and there, across from him, standing beneath the island of trees in front of the church, he saw a man. There was a glazed, still look to the man's face, not as if he did not mind the rain, the dripping on his head, but as if he could not understand the rain, that he could not even feel it, let alone go so far as to mind it.

He was handsome, Chris noted. Beautiful, even. But he was hiding. And that made him yet another lover of his father's: too embarrassed to come to the funeral itself, too heartbroken to stay away.

Chris was too tired to feel angry. At least, he thought, his mother and sisters had already gone home.

'Hello,' he said. He looked both ways before stepping out into the road, but there was no need. The only cars left lingered on in the parking lot. He approached the man slowly, umbrella outstretched. 'Are you here for Dr Chow's funeral? I'm sorry, but the service is already over.'

The man blinked at him, rainwater running sleek down his still and silent face - and Chris felt sorry for him, suddenly. Maybe he had believed his father. Maybe he had really thought he was the only one.

'Do you need to call somebody?' Chris offered, stepping up onto the island.

A loud honk startled him. He turned to the parking lot - and the man came alive with a sigh, reaching out sharp and winding Chris in slow by his tie.

Chris let himself be wound. The top of his umbrella bumped amongst the bottom of the branches. The man leaned back against the trunk of a tree, Chris falling artlessly into the cool tangle of his arms.

Loud and heavy Chris's heart thudded in his chest. Anticipation rose like hair on the back of his neck. This close the man smelled like-- like--

'I need you,' said the man, voice curling strange around his words.

Chris eyed the man closely. The man eyed him back. He was absolutely certain that they had never met before - and yet... there was something about him... something familiar.

'Hm. Well. Ok,' said Chris, leaning into the sensation. 'Are you hungry?'

The man tilted his head, as if considering the question. 'Yes, I think so,' he said finally. He gazed at Chris for a long moment. 'May I have you?'

Chris raised his eyebrows. The man looked at him expectantly.

'Maybe later,' Chris decided.

The man frowned. 'Why not now?' he said.

'Well, I don't know you,' Chris pointed out. 'And I did just bury my father.' The man's frown deepened. 'Sorry.'

The man pulled Chris in close by the front of his coat. Chris breathed in the scent of him till he grew lightheaded and faint.

'Hello, then. I am called He-of-Daring-Echoes, and your father promised you to my family.' Strange name, Chris thought, folding it into his mind.

'Hello,' said Chris. 'My name is Chris.'

'A pleasure to finally meet you,' said He-of-Daring-Echoes, beaming. His teeth were profoundly sharp. Something within Chris flinched - and then he tossed his umbrella to the side, the better to grab the stranger close. He was wet in the space of a moment, but couldn't find it in himself to mind.

'Oh!' said He-of-Daring-Echoes. Chris handled him more gently, then, pressing him kind against the tree. He-of-Daring-Echoes laughed. 'Is it all right now, then? You know me now - may I have you?'

Chris struggled to rewind their conversation. Somehow everything had become very muddled and slow in his mind. 'When you say promised, what do you mean?' he said. 'Like what, arranged marriage, is it?'

'Oh, no, not at all,' said He-of-Daring-Echoes, rocking up into Chris's embrace. 'No, your father came to my mother and asked for success and happiness all his days. And my mother said, I will give you success and happiness all your days, but in return I must have your firstborn child. So I'm here to take you home. If nothing else, I'm sure you could cheer Mother up!'

It sounded an awful lot like an arranged marriage to Chris. Certainly an arranged something. 'I don't know your mother, though,' he said, muzzily, burying his face in that strange, lovely neck. He felt the heat of his mouth pass to the skin beneath his lips.

'Oh,' said He-of-Daring-Echoes. 'She-she has been so sad lately. Ah!' He gasped as Chris kissed all the way up to his ear. 'Is this how humans greet each other? It feels so--' His hands slid up to clutch at Chris's shoulders. '--so _warm_.'

'I don't know about other humans,' said Chris, sucking kisses into the man's jaw. 'Don't worry about anyone else. Worry about me, huh.' He pulled back. He-of-Daring-Echoes blinked open his eyes. 'I'm sad, too. Why don't you cheer me up?'

He-of-Daring-Echoes swallowed. 'Oh, I will try,' he said quietly. 'What makes you happy?'

Chris thought about it. 'Nothing,' he said. The stranger made a noise of distress. Oh, that was no good. Chris kissed him till he melted, low-lidded and lovely, down into his arms.

Chris liked the look of him. 'Sex does,' he amended, 'sometimes.'

'Well,' said He-of-Daring-Echoes, biting his lovely, lovely lower lip, 'I, I suppose--'

A large glancing blow caught Chris by surprise. He fell to the ground, wounding his hands on the spines of his upended umbrella. The pain cleared his mind--

and he was himself again, wet and muddy and now sincerely stunned. He shook his head, trying to shake free the muzzy languidness, trying to convince his legs to move.

'Oh, oh, are you all right?' said-- something that was not a man, Chris realised, looking at him truly for the first time. His face moved all strange, no matter how beautiful it was. And those _teeth_.

The thing held out a hand. Chris flinched back.

The thing looked twisted and sorry, his face still moving all wrong, before scowling round at the air. 'Look what you've done, Brimagedd, now he's scared of us!'

I'm not _scared_ , Chris made to say, but somehow his voice caught deep in his throat.

'Look what _I've_ done!' said a voice, somewhere on the ground.

'Shit! Where did--' He raised his legs, staring hard down at the ground. But he saw nothing but grass and roots, mud and leaves.

Yet the voice railed on: 'You're the one going around trying to get yourself _defiled_ by a human, Derek! You better dim down your dalliah right this instant, you little scound, or I'll go back right now and tell your mothers all that you have planned! Now get down here and pick me up!'

Derek got to his knees at once. 'He wouldn't _defile_ me,' he said. The look he sent Chris lengthened. 'He would be lovely.'

'Pah!' A small smudge of a creature, looking like nothing so much as a grey gecko, dragged on its belly through a wet clump of leaves. It raised its head and stared up at Chris coldly. And then its lips began to move: 'Yes, so lovely - that feeble gaze would treat you to such kindness, I'm sure.'

Chris stared, and stared, and kept staring like reality had not tipped itself sideways. He opened his mouth - and a laugh left his lips, startling all three of them.

'Jeez,' he said, chest heaving with laughter and pain and something choked and in-between, 'today really is the worst fucking day of my life.'

'We,' said Derek, 'are very sorry to you.'

'I'm not sorry,' said the small creature, crawling up Derek's leg. _Brimagedd_ , Derek had called it. Chris resisted the urge to flick it away. 'I never liked that human overmuch.'

Derek paid it no mind. 'We offer our aid to you freely--'

Brimagedd made a noise that sounded very much like spitting.

'-- _I_ offer my aid to you freely,' Derek said. 'Only tell me what you need, and I will see it done.'

Chris stood to his feet, shakily, wiping off the worst of the mud on the knees of his slacks. Ahh. So much for wearing this to his interview. He looked down at Derek, still wet and strange and wrong, and he found another sigh within him. Even now the scales of desire clouded his sight and changed what he saw.

Derek sent him a hopeful smile.

'Leave me alone,' said Chris. Then he walked away.

 


End file.
